


Interlude: Episode 10

by dannyPURO



Category: Babylon Berlin
Genre: Episode: s01e10, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Minor Character Death, Sharing a Bed, Soup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 01:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14863674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannyPURO/pseuds/dannyPURO
Summary: Charlotte goes to Stephan's apartment in hopes of finding a bed for the night. She finds a little comfort there, too.An interlude in Episode 10, before everything gets sadder.





	Interlude: Episode 10

Stephan isn’t expecting, of course, for Charlotte to crumple like she does when he asks her. It had been a joke, almost, though he doubts his father had had anything but sincere intentions when he’d demanded he ask her if she needed a bed for the night. (Looking back, of course, he wonders if he, too, should have seen that she’d need one, should have anticipated, if not exactly, the reaction she’d have, just like his father had somehow been able to do. It’s not as if he doesn’t spend enough time observing her, in the least offensive manner he can strive to obtain.)

Bringing him back to the moment at hand-- it happens in an instant, but Charlotte’s chin is trembling, her throat working, and by the time she collects herself to answer, to ask for just a few hours rest, there’s already a tear rolling down her cheek.

He’s never seen her cry before.

She is now, though, choking back tears as she eats Stephan’s mother’s squash soup, and Stephan doesn’t know what to.

“It’s no problem,” he says quickly. “You can have my bed. I’ll take the sofa. I have to get up early anyway.” It hardly seems to fix the problem-- and, indeed, he has yet to discover what the problem really is-- but she looks up at him and flashes a watery smile.

“The soup is delicious,” she says, finally, and she knows Stephan's mother can’t hear, by now, but looking over, he can tell his mother knows the compliment is for her, anyways.

“Make your bed with the good linens for your friend,” his mother signs. “She needs rest.”

He waits, maybe only because he doesn’t want to let her out of his sight right now, in case she breaks down again, and once she finishes eating, he takes her into his room and ushers her to the chair at his desk. He makes the bed in silence, because Charlotte is still crying softly, and he makes a move to leave the room, after that, before he stops, turns, sits back down on the mattress. “Are you alright, Charlotte? Really?”

She chokes back a sob and puts her face in her hands. “I’ll be fine.”

He sighs, and really, he hates to intrude, but if there’s one thing he hates more, it’s seeing his closest colleague in such a state in his own bedroom, with nothing he can do to fix it. “Charlotte.” She stands up slowly and takes a few cautious steps towards the bed. Stephan looks on in confusion before he realizes that she intends to sit down beside him on the comforter. He scoots over, just to make room, once he does, but she sits down against him anyways, shoulder to shoulder. Not that he minds.

“My mother is dead,” she says, voice hoarse and so soft he has to strain to hear her. “She died yesterday.” And that explains rather a lot, he thinks, and he can think of nothing to do but to wrap an arm around her shoulders and hold her close. It occurs to him, a moment later, that Charlotte, from what he knows of her, may not like being coddled and held close, especially by him. Perhaps by Greta, that friend of hers, but not him. When he looks down, however, to fully consider pulling away and attempting to rectify his error, she’s already pressed her face into his shoulder like she needed nothing more.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and it hardly covers it, because he is sorry, he’s sorry for anything that would make such a wonderful, dynamic, intelligent person so unlike herself, and more than anything, he’s sorry for anything that would make Charlotte Ritter unhappy.

“My sister and her husband are selling her possessions now. I couldn’t stop them. They’re vultures, the both of them. Cruel.” Her voice is muffled against his shirt.

He can’t imagine what it’s like to have a family like that. He’s lucky, he knows it; he loves his parents more than anything, and besides, he doesn’t even have siblings to squabble with and resent. Charlotte’s family is far different, from what little he’s gathered from the few passing conversations he considers himself lucky to have had with her, and for a moment, he considers what it would be like to have a family like that. Horrible, probably, despite how he knows she loves her little sister, and he wonders if she even has a home to go back to, after her mother’s death. He considers what it would be like to have Charlotte be a part of his family, however far-fetched it seems. “You deserve better than them,” he says, and he feels guilty enough about that last thought that he wants to add, _‘and me,’_ to the end, because Charlotte is his friend, and he shouldn’t be thinking about romancing her in her time of need. He doesn’t say it.

She shakes her head, sniffs, but doesn’t say anything.

They sit together, for a few more minutes, in silence. “You should sleep,” he says, breaking the silence, when he catches a glimpse of the clock on his nightstand. “You’ll feel a little better in the morning.” He disentangles himself from around her and rises to his feet.

“Stephan?” She speaks again when he stands, ready to go back to the living room, to get some sleep on the couch, and she reaches a hand out to grab his wrist.

“Yes?”

“Will…” she pauses. “Will you stay? Please?”

He stops in his tracks. “What?”

“Stay.”

Stephan sighs. “You aren’t thinking clearly, Charlotte. I won’t… I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Charlotte shakes her head. “Just sleep next to me. Please. I don’t want to be alone.”

And he can’t very well say no to that, of course. Not to Charlotte Ritter. “Alright,” he says. “Do you need to borrow a nightgown from my mother?”

“I’ll wear my slip.” She slips her dress off over her head, and Stephan averts his eyes, no matter how often he’s thought about a scenario very similar to this one in his own private time. He removes his own slacks, then, behind the slight privacy of his desks, then turns off the lights, and then carefully, carefully, slides into the bed behind her.

“Thank you, Stephan,” she says, almost in a whisper, and she closes her eyes.

He can’t figure out why he ever thought he could refuse her this. Not when it would ease her pain even a little bit. Not when she would feel so warm in bed beside him, just against his shoulder, his knee, his lower arm, where they touch. “Sleep, Charlotte.”

* * *

 

He wakes before her, in the morning, which he figures is a good thing. What might not be a good thing, of course, is how sometime in the night, perhaps somewhat predictably, they’ve shifted together, so that their bodies curl against one another like spoons in a cutlery drawer, his nose pressed up against the nape of her neck and the soft curls there. She smells like sweat, but he hardly minds. He hardly minds the curve of her waist, the soft skin of her calf against his.

He should get out of the bed. She could wake up at any minute, and he’s sure that this isn’t what she was suggesting when she asked him to stay. He finds himself lingering a little longer, closing his eyes to just focus on committing the moment to memory: the soft sheets, the warmth of her skin, the morning light. Stephan has to get up, though, eventually, and he carefully extracts himself from her and creeps around to his desk. He has work to do, he needn’t get breakfast right away. He gets dressed slowly, then sits at his desk trying to focus on the letter he ought to be writing, glancing over, every minute or so, to the bed.

His alarm sounds with a buzz, and he scrambles to shut it off before she awakes. He should get ready for work, he knows. He considers, for a moment, waking Charlotte; either to tell her where he’s off to, or to confess, before he can back out, what’s on his mind. He does neither, however, and merely tugs the curtains shut, plunging the room in a cozy darkness, before shutting the door softly behind him and going to make breakfast. There will always be another day to tell her. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps the day after that.


End file.
